Tag: parents

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Besties

“She’s my very best friend,” my mother said. “Friends are important.”

Other than Edie, her closest friend in grade school, I’ve never known my mother to have a girlfriend, let alone a “very best” friend. She’s never been chummy with other women, a self-professed seeker of solitude. But finding a best friend in the very place I worried she would never adapt to?

Almost as startling as her disrobing in the care home parking lot after our walk down the greenbelt yesterday.

Mom’s acceptance of this new world continues to shatter my expectations. I worried she’d never join in. Last week, she led a gardening activity, helping other residents plant marigolds and marjoram. I worried she’d want to go back to Maine. Now, when I take her out to lunch, she can’t wait to return to her “house.” And her bestie.

Did you know:  Loneliness could be as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day?

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Emotional Rescue

Therapy dogs. They provide support for cancer patients. Disabled individuals. And certainly those with dementia.

Each week, I bring Max, my eight-month-old rescue lab, to visit my mother. She and the residents at her new memory care home love this puppy. He’s just like them. He rambles the halls with restless energy. His attention span is as short as the commercials that play on the activity room’s TV. He lives in the moment like his new friends. Calendars and clocks are meaningless.

He’s the perfect remedy for dementia, bringing joy to those who are often lonely and discontent.

And now, Mom’s caregiving team has a four-legged addition.

The side effect of this prescription is as healing as its benefits: emotional support for the caregiver. Max delights the staff at the care home, too. And he helps me stay positive.

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Church Ladies

My childhood religion was faith-based. Church twice a week. Daily Bible study. A loving God.

Disease was denied. No medicine, hospitals, doctors. Alcohol and drugs were forbidden.

My world changed when my parents divorced.

Trading the blind faith of religion for first-hand life experiences with various substances was absolute freedom. I didn’t doubt God’s existence; I just forgot Him.

After a quarter-century, the experiment failed. Plunged into the darkness of addiction, I sought God again.

Something bigger than me has kept me sober for two decades. And until recently, my resentment toward religion had evaporated into the ether.

Respecting my mother’s denial of Alzheimer’s isn’t easy. She may forget people, or that she’s moved across country, but she hasn’t forgotten God.

The Universe has a sick sense of humor. We’re now attending her new church together and her joy slowly outweighs my antipathy.